


Surrender

by Starki (ashaleighmarie)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: And Tony arguing with Odin, Angst, FrostIron - Freeform, Like a BAMF, Lots of Angst, M/M, and a bit of anxiety from Tony also, cause that's a thing, inspired by a song, lots of flashback type moments, mostly involving Loki, surrender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-20
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-27 03:05:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/973566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashaleighmarie/pseuds/Starki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They know Loki is on Midgard.</p>
<p>When Thor returned from a long weekend home to Asgard with urgent news, Tony thought nothing too much of it until he actually looked twice at the grave expression on the Thunderer's face, and realized that urgent didn't just mean by Asgardian standards. It meant actual urgency as in Tony would probably need to sit down for this. With a scotch. Or ten.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surrender

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was entirely inspired by the song Surrender, from the soundtrack of The Pirate Queen. Disregarding pretty much the entire second verse and all other parts referring to children and motherhood, the lyrics gave me such emotions that I simply had to incorporate them into frostiron somehow. And so this story was born. I hope you all enjoy it, and feel free to leave comments and constructive criticisms. Hopefully I'll start posting more stuff here after this :3
> 
> Full lyrics will be posted in the notes at the end of the chapter.

When Thor returned from a long weekend home to Asgard with _urgent news_ , Tony thought nothing too much of it until he actually looked twice at the grave expression on the Thunderer's face, and realized that _urgent_ didn't just mean by Asgardian standards. It meant actual _urgency_ as in Tony would probably need to sit down for this. With a scotch. Or ten.

He settles for one to start, and declines a seat to lean against the bar instead, as Thor sinks down onto his couch and explains, with great seriousness, what he has learned while away.

_**They know Loki is on Midgard.** _

Tony quickly decided that he was going to need those other nine glasses of scotch.

_**Heimdall still has not laid his eyes upon him, but they knows my brother is here, and they intend to hunt him down and return him to Asgard to suffer the punishment which was handed down to him prior to his escape.** _

A lifetime of punishment.

Eternity in a cage.

Alone.

Tony's fingers tighten around the glass in his fingers, and he resists the urge to smash it on the nearest wall. He settles for refilling it and taking another deep swallow.

The haste with which Loki fled the last time they met suddenly makes so much more sense. The hasty touches and desperate caresses which seemed to bleed both sentiment and regret all at once. The look in those fierce green eyes as foreheads had pressed together, and muted murmurs into his collarbone in a language he could not speak, while he curled his fingers into his lover's hair and sought to soothe the inexplicable tension from his shoulders.

Loki had known then that they were on his trail.

And it had been his goodbye.

Dark eyes were hard as granite as he looked back to Thor, who still sat and watched him with concern and a restless sort of energy crawling just under his skin.

"How can I help."

=================

When offering to help, he hadn't quite anticipated that his efforts would include a trip to the big golden castle in the sky itself, but as Thor stood under an open sky and called to Heimdall, Tony stood at his side with hands fisted in his pockets, fighting to keep his breathing level.

_In and out. In and out. Deep breaths. No hyperventilating, it's just traveling through time and space to basically another planet far away from here where everyone is super strong like Thor and-_

Oh hey, he was hyperventilating after all.

He closed his eyes, and focused on something, anything else.

Cool, slender fingers trailing up his cheek. Mocking laughter that wasn't so mocking after all when he emerged from the lab with his eyebrows singed and a kiss to either one repaired the damage he had done to them.

Nights curled into blankets together, hours spent regaling one another with tales. Of love and loss and darkness. Of Afghanistan and falling through space. Of Howard, of Laufey, of Odin. Of frost giants and arc reactors.

He felt the sudden yank of magic in his belly before the ground seemed to disappear from under his feet, and he kept his eyes closed and teeth gritted, as if it could possibly make the lurching in his stomach go away. And he imagined a thumb under his chin, a fond laugh in his ear.

And when the ground was under his feet again, his knees didn't give way as he had been so sure they would.

"Our audience with the Allfather is to begin immediately," Thor declared, catching Tony by the shoulder to direct him along. He went willingly, if only because he was still trying to finish regulating his breathing while looking around at absolutely everything at once. They were in a grand hall, all gold and bronze and heavily Norse-influenced, everywhere he looked. Although it was probably more accurate to say that it was Norse, and it was the Nordic races back on Earth that were the ones that had been influenced.

As they approached the giant double doors which no doubt led to wherever Odin was waiting for them, Tony ducked around Thor to get a look at the pair of armed guards waiting there. His fingers twitched, and he thought longingly of his suit back home. He was far too vulnerable like this.

He felt no shame in walking a bit closer to Thor as the doors slid open and they passed through them together.

Thor had, of course, neglected to mention that the audience with Odin was only being observed by what seemed like hundreds of Asgardians. All of whom, of course, immediately turned their gazes toward Thor and - by proxy - himself, the moment they came through the door. He felt like a kitten in a dog park. A feral dog park. Feral dogs that were curious to know if kittens made for good eating.

His metaphors were starting to get hysterical.

Oh look. Hyperventilating again.

"Anthony Stark, Man of Iron, warrior of Midgard. My son has informed me that you have had contact with Loki since he has concealed himself on your planet."

No longer hyperventilating, he was pretty sure he was just outright choking now.

"Actually, sorry your, uh, Allfather-ness, but it's Tony, not Anthony. Only my parents call me that, heh." Oh God. Where the hell did his ability to bullshit his way through every instance of public speaking _ever_ go?

"And, uh, _yeah_ , I've talked to Loki. Don't know where he is right now though, he never stays in one place for long." Go ahead and get that out of the way. No need to torture him old-school-style for information, cause he had none.

"So you knew that the war criminal Loki was loose in Midgard and did nothing to alert your planet's authorities nor Asgard through your connection with my son. Why."

Seriously, the UN could stand to learn a few things about intimidation tactics from this guy.

"Well..."

_Falling rubble, collapsing buildings, Doom bots, fucking fuckers, bleeding from somewhere, too weak, suit's out of juice, can't get out, can't radio for help. A man in a can. Dying alone in the dark._

_And then there's air, light, and green eyes lock with his for only a second before they vanish. And suddenly Steve is there, and he feels safe enough to sleep, thinking on the green eyes that had been there to free him from a concrete grave..._

"The first time I came in contact with Loki after I watched him disappear with Thor to come back here for his trial, he saved my life." His head is held high, and he hears murmurs of disbelief, of doubt, coming from the crowd at his back. "We were fighting Doctor Doom's bots, and an explosive brought a building down on my head. Loki got me out ten times faster than anyone else could have. I might have died in there if he hadn't."

Odin didn't seem overly shocked or disturbed by his story, merely neutral as he stared at Tony with that one, grim eye.

"Did you not tell anyone of his involvement in your rescue?"

Tony shook his head. "No. By the time they thought to ask me how I made it out, I told them I had no clue. Just dumb luck." A wry grin tugged up the corner of his mouth.

Odin did not seem amused. "And why did you not tell someone that he might still be loose on your planet?"

Tony shrugged. "I didn't see the point. If he was there to cause trouble, he'd have made himself known. And he wouldn't have saved my life."

Again, Odin did not seem impressed. "When did Loki next contact you?"

"Weeks later. I forget how long. I came home and he was on my couch. He asked me for a drink."

_You offered me a drink the last time I was here. I'd like to take you up on it now._

"I gave it to him. I figured I'd try to figure out what I could, why he was here, what he was up to. He didn't talk much, but he shared a drink with me and then thanked me for it and then vanished."

In hindsight now he knew it was a trust exercise, a way to see if Tony intended to turn him in or if he would be safe in coming to the Tower, without needing to worry that Fury or Thor or Odin himself would one day be there waiting for him.

"He popped in from time to time, we'd share drinks, every now and then he might talk a little bit, not about anything important. He just seemed to have time to kill, and he chose to spend it with me."

Odin's single eye was unblinkingly locked upon his face. "And each time he came to you, you never thought to alert anyone to his presence."

"Nope."

The murmurs were louder this time, but a sweeping glare from Odin quieted the room.

"I ask you again. Why."

Tony sort of got the feeling that Odin wasn't a man - or God, or whatever - accustomed to asking twice for anything. "Because I didn't deem him a threat."

This time there were raised voices of dissent from the crowd. Odin allowed them a moment before once again silencing them with a look. "You took it upon yourself to judge him innocent or guilty for a crime which he already stood trial and was sentenced for."

The implication in the words left his throat a little dry, but he licked his lips and pressed on. "I didn't see any point in turning him in if I could find out more by letting him come and go from my Tower as he pleased."

"You would learn nothing from Loki, Anthony Stark, just by listening to him. He speaks in lies and little else."

_Odin never understood when I first began to dabble in magic. It was Frigga that encouraged me, quietly, sitting in the library together practicing spells while Odin looked over Thor's physical training. He saw no point in it, he saw little point in anything that made me any different from Thor. Which makes me wonder why he bothered in the first place, knowing I was already more different from Thor than he or his own magic would ever be able to fix._

"I believe that's actually inaccurate, but anyway. He's been on my planet all this time and he's done nothing wrong."

"Only because he fears retribution. Should he make an enemy of you now after he has managed to fool you into trusting him, his attempts to remain out of our reach will have been for nothing. He is patient enough to wait out the lifetime of a single Midgardian if it means avoiding the punishment which he has earned. He seeks to behave only so long as it benefits him, until he believes we finally grow tired of searching for him, and then he will emerge to continue with whatever wicked scheme he has in the meantime concocted."

He could hear Thor shuffling behind him, as though restless, perhaps wanting to speak and yet knowing to hold his tongue. Tony, on the other hand, wasn't quite so hesitant.

"You know, I'm starting to wonder why you wanted me here."

Odin tipped his head back slightly, looking down at him. "We had hoped you would be more helpful in pinpointing Loki's whereabouts."

"Could've just gotten Thor to deliver a letter or something if that was it."

Odin gestured briefly with a free hand. "It matters little now. We will keep closer watch upon you once you have returned to Midgard and once he has shown himself again we will move to recapture him."

His blood transformed into ice, slushy and useless in his veins. "Hold on, I'm not authorizing any kidnapping parties to camp out around my place."

"Your authorization is not needed. Your personal life will not be impeded, once Loki has been captured you will no longer require observation-"

" _He's not doing any harm by sitting in my Tower eating ice cream and taking a fucking vacation!_ "

His voice rose without warning, frustration blooming hotly in his belly. A hush fell over the room. "You believe he deserves this vacation, Anthony Stark?"

Tony's fingers curled into fists, hidden away in his pockets. "I believe he wasn't in his right mind during that invasion, and he doesn't deserve to be locked up for the rest of his life for something he wasn't entirely in control of!"

"Then you believe the lies he has fed you, and you are of no further use to us here. He has corrupted you."

_Jotunheim is a planet of frost and wasteland. I saw it and thought it was ugly and terrible. But I think I would sooner live in such an icy climate than risk a prettier place if the temperature might cause such grievous harm as I have experienced._

"Give him a retrial."

Tony stands firm when Thor lands a hand on his arm to try and pull him away. "Give Loki a retrial. Offer him a lighter sentence. Something. He doesn't deserve the punishment he was given. He'll come back if he doesn't have to worry about being locked away forever."

"You would question my judgment? What makes you so sure he would bother to appear if I chose to tolerate the idea?”

_You are a strange one, Tony Stark. But I am glad to have found you that day in the rubble._

Tony took a step forward.

_Deep breaths. In and out._

In that moment, he felt calm. So calm. His breathing was deep and even.

_Your skin is dark and yet so very fragile should I use my full strength on you. Mm, you’ll wear those marks for days, Stark. I wonder if they will ask who put them there._

“Because I will stay here in his place until he comes.”

From the roar of the crowd, he feels only satisfaction.

“I know I don’t mean much by Asgardian standards. Here I stand, no crown, nothing. Just what I own back on Earth which is worthless to you here. But I’m prepared to surrender everything, right here, right now, if you will promise me that you’ll give Loki a fair retrial. That you’ll actually listen to him and give him the chance to tell you what really happened after he fell from the bridge.”

His expression is serious and his stance unflinching, staring up at Odin as the one-eyed Allfather stared back.

_I am the Liar of Asgard with good reason. I gave no one any desire to trust me. But then, they gave me no reason to trust them either. The Silvertongue has no use for honesty, it only ends in pain for all involved. What irony then that I pour all my truth into a Midgardian such as you and wait for the recoil._

“…You trust him to such an extent?”

_My turn now, Loki._

“Yes.”

_My turn to save you._

“…So be it.”

_If this is what it takes to keep you out of the cage you hate so much…_

“Anthony Stark, you will be taken into Asgardian custody and you will remain thusly until Loki Laufeyson shows himself in order to receive a retrial for his crimes against Midgard.”

_Then with joyous heart-  
I surrender._

**Author's Note:**

> Full lyrics for Surrender:
> 
> Here I stand,  
> No crown, no land  
> And yet prepared to tender  
> My unconditional surrender  
> To pledge my plight, to reunite  
> A mother and her son.
> 
> This woman you chained,  
> This woman I love  
> Know just how brave she can be  
> And don’t shed a tear, not for me  
> Her only need is to embrace  
> A son who’s never seen her face.
> 
> And so it is my turn has come,  
> As ever her defender  
> With joyous heart I surrender.  
> Chain me now and set her free  
> To heed her young son’s call
> 
> Let me trade my life for hers  
> And I’ll surrender all.


End file.
